Trojan Badger

Keep trying until it works…

One blog for everything, guaranteed to baffle everybody some of the time.

Mar 23

Simulated HDR

Faking it

I decided to mess around with one of my flood images, turning it into an HDR shot without actually merging separate exposures. My working theory is that most camera sensors have sufficient bit depth all by themselves to produce some stunning HDR images. The problem is that existing HDR tools are setup around a 32-bit workflow. However, it is easy enough to compensate for this deficiency.

Here is what I started with:

And here is where I ended up:

As you can see, it works. The process is simple, and I have to imagine it would work in any of the existing tone-mapping tools out there. I loaded the original RAW image in ACR, and tweaked the raw settings to produce a basic neutral image. I then created 8 versions of that image, only changing the Exposure Compensation in steps of one, from -4 to +3. The rest of the process is the same as with any HDR source material: Merge and tone map.

No doubt a true multi-exposure HDR shot is superior. However, this simulated method produces excellent results.

About

I'm a Lutheran pastor, a CTO, a father, amateur photographer, programmer, Irish music fan, and all around geek, but I only have one blog. So, you will find here a mix of theology, photography, geek speak, family news, and whatever else strikes my fancy. If you get confused, there are now categories…